Bed Bug Causes in the San Francisco Bay Area

How Did I Get Bed Bugs?

There is a myriad of ways your person, your belongings, and your home can
become infested with bedbugs. Bedbugs don’t fly and they are rare
in nature, so they probably didn’t just come in from outside. Bedbugs
are called “hitchhikers”. They are brought in by you on your
person or belongings; they are brought in by your friends, associates,
children and work personnel. If you live in a condo, apartment, or townhome,
bedbugs can be shared through common walls.

Let’s Take A Closer Look

If you take a vacation or business trip, there are over 20 contact points
where you can get bed bugs before your trip is over, if you fly.

These potential points of contact include:

the shuttle to and from the airport

the shuttle from the parking lot to the terminal and back again

the curb skycap’s gondola

the baggage sorting equipment in the airport

the tram that takes the bags to the plane’s baggage hold and back
again to the terminal

the baggage compartment

the seats on the airplane

the overhead baggage compartments

the baggage carousel in the baggage pick up area

the transportation that takes you to and from your meeting or hotel

the bellhop’s gondola at the hotel upon check in or check out

your hotel room

in any public places you visit

Bedbugs can be found in all modes of travel --- trains, buses, ships, and
taxi cabs.

And if we want to talk about public places where we live, to name a few,
there are:

theatres

the opera

churches

malls

waiting areas in hospitals or clinics

libraries

schools

sports arenas

Bedbugs may be found almost anyplace humans go; they hitchhike from one
place to another, setting up residence and causing infestations. Your
child might bring them home on a backpack. You might bring them home on
your coat which was thrown on an infested bed at a friend’s house.
Or maybe your college student brings bedbugs home in their duffle or luggage.

We might not think about it, but bedbugs can be gotten from:

rental furniture not fumigated properly

used furniture picked up off the street or at garage sales or consignment shops

new furniture that is delivered by a truck that has carried away old infested furniture

a moving van if it isn’t treated between moves

The number of ways you might pick up bedbugs is vast; it just takes being
in the wrong place at the wrong time for one of these hitchhikers to catch
hold and cause an infestation in your world.

How Long Is It Before I Know I Have Contracted Bedbugs?

You might actually find an adult bedbug on your belongings right away,
but it is more likely that you’ll import a few eggs which are sticky
so they stick to you and your belongings, or you’ll bring home early
instars (nymphs) which are very small and they will probably go unnoticed.
In this case, it could be months before you know you have a problem.

The eggs are so small that almost 1000 will fit on a postage stamp. You
may not even see them. After a week or two, they will hatch and disperse,
but the hatchlings are so small that about 500 will fit on that same postage
stamp, so you probably won’t see them either. Then in a week or
so they will try to get their first blood meal from you. If you do see
a bite mark, you would probably mistake it for a mosquito, flea, or spider
bite. The look of the bite will vary depending on your own body’s
particular allergic reaction. The bites often itch and scratching them
may cause infection.

Eventually, you might see a blood spot on a sheet, but even that often
goes unnoticed until there are many of them. It will take about 60 to
120 days before bedbugs move through all five juvenile stages and become
breeding adults. Then watch out! You have a full-blown infestation. So,
how long is it before you know? It could easily be three to five months
after the initial contact before you know what is happening. By then,
it is doubtful that you will have a firm idea of where you might have
contracted the problem.

Buildings With Common Walls -- Who’s To Blame?

Who’s to blame? You just won’t know. For instance, if some
of the young bedbugs walked inside a common wall and emerged minutes later
on the neighbor’s side, they might breed faster there, though they
originally came from you. Why? Maybe the neighbors have more hosts (you’re
single, but they have three kids,) or the bugs can get to them easier
since their mattresses are right on the floor or touching the wall while
your bed is in the middle of the room with only the frame wheels touching
the floor.

If the neighbors are better hosts, their bedbugs will mature faster and
proliferate faster. You may have initially introduced the problem, but
one would never know it based on the level of infestation. So, you just
can’t tell who’s to blame based on who has the worse outbreak.
In short, forget blame and concentrate on the very logical steps to a
solution. That solution is The Bed Bug all Gone Treatment Plan, our revolutionary
non-toxic method, where one single service protects you for an entire year.

Call us today at (510) 230-0081 for expert exterminators in the San Francisco
Bay area and the Big Valley.